November 8, 2023 • 19 mins
"The Invisible Man" is a classic science fiction novel written by H.G. Wells and first published in 1897. The story revolves around the character of Griffin, a brilliant but eccentric scientist who discovers a way to become invisible. After successfully making himself invisible, Griffin quickly realizes that his newfound power comes with significant challenges and consequences.The novel explores the themes of power, morality, and the consequences of unchecked scientific curiosity. Griffin's invisible state allows him to indulge in his darker impulses, leading him down a path of cruelty and criminality. As he struggles to find a way to reverse his condition, he becomes increasingly isolated and desperate.Griffin's invisibility becomes both a physical and metaphorical representation of his detachment from society and his descent into madness. He becomes a symbol of the dangers of unchecked scientific experimentation and the potential for individuals to abuse their power.Throughout the novel, Griffin's actions create a sense of fear and unease in the townspeople who encounter him. As he becomes more unhinged, he becomes a menace, and the novel explores the efforts of those around him to stop his reign of terror."The Invisible Man" is not only a thrilling and suspenseful tale but also a thought-provoking commentary on the human condition and the consequences of playing with forces beyond one's control. It remains a seminal work in the science fiction genre and continues to be studied and adapted into various forms of media.
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(00:00):
This is a LibriVox recording. AllLibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information, ought to volunteeryourself, please visit w w W dot
LibriVox dot org. To day's readingby Alex Foster w w W dot Alex
Foster dot me dot u K.The Invisible Man by H. G.
Wells, Chapter twenty at the Housein Great Portland Street. For a moment,
(00:29):
Kemp sat in silence, staring atthe back of the headless figure at
the window. Then he started,struck by a thought. Rose took the
Invisible Man's arm and turned him awayfrom the outlook. You're tired, he
said, and while I sit youwalk about. Have my chair. He
(00:50):
placed himself between Gryffin and the nearestwindow. For a space, Griffin sat
silent, then he resumed abruptly.I had left the Chesilstowe Cottage already,
he said. When that happened waslast December. I had taken a room
in London, a large, unfurnishedroom with a big, ill managed lodging
(01:10):
house in a slum near Great PortlandStreet. The room was soon full of
the appliances I had bought with hismoney, and the work was going on
steadily successfully drawing near an end.I was like a man emerging from a
thicket and suddenly coming on some unmeaningtragedy. I went to bury him.
My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift a finger
to save his character. I rememberthe funeral, the chief hearst, the
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scant ceremony, the windy, frostbittenhillside, and the old college friend of
his who read the service over him, a shabby, black, bent old
man with a snivering cold. Iremember walking back to the empty house,
through the place that had once beena village, and was now patched and
tinkered by the jerry builders, intothe ugly likeness of a town. Every
(01:57):
way. The roads ran out atlast into the desert crated fields and ended
in rubble heaps and rank, wetweeds. I remembered myself as a gaunt
black figure going along the slippery,shiny pavement on the strange sense of detachment
I felt from the squalid respectability,the sordid commercialism of the place. I
did not feel a bit sorry formy father. He seemed to me to
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be the victim of his own foolishsentimentality. The current cant required my attendance
at his funeral, but it wasreally not my affair. But going along
the high Street, my old lifecame back to me for a space for
I met the girl I had knownten years since our eyes met. Something
moved me to turn back and talkto her. She was a very ordinary
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person. It was all like adream that visit to the old places.
I did not feel then that Iwas lonely, that I had come out
from the world into a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy,
but I put it down to thegeneral inanity of things. Re Entering my
room seemed like the recovery of reality. They were the things I knew and
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loved. There stood the apparatus,the experiments arranged and waiting, And now
there was scarcely a difficulty left beyondthe planning of details. I will tell
you camp sooner or later. Allthe complicated processes. We need not go
into that now. For the mostpart, saving certain gaps, I chose
to remember they are written in cipherin those books the tramp has hidden.
(03:27):
We must hunt him down. Wemust get those books again. But the
essential phase was to place the transparentobject, whose refractive index was to be
lowered between two radiating centers of asort of ethereal vibration of which I will
tell you more fully later. No, not those oilancon vibrations. I don't
know those. These others of minehad been described yet they are obvious enough.
(03:49):
I needed two little dynamos, andthese I worked with a cheap gas
engine. My first experiment was witha bit of white wool fabric. It
was the strangest thing in the worldto see it in the flicker of the
flash, soft and white, andthen to watch it fade like a wreath
of smoke and vanish. I couldscarcely believe I had done it. I
put my hand into the emptiness,and there was the thing, as solid
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as ever. I felt it awkwardlyand threw it on the floor. I
had a little trouble finding it again, and then came a curious experience.
I heard her meow behind me,and turning saw a lean white cat,
very dirty, on the cistern coveroutside the window. A thought came into
my head. Everything ready for you, I said, and I went to
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the window, opened it and calledsoftly. She came in, purring.
The poor beast was starving, andI gave her some milk. All my
food was in a cupboard in thecorner of the room. After that she
went smelling round the room, evidentlywith the idea of making herself at home.
The invisible rag upset her a bit. Who should have seen a spit
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at it? But I made hercomfortable on the pillow of my truckle bed,
and I gave her butter to gether to wash, and you processed
her. I processed her. Butgiving drugs to a cat is no joke,
kemp, and the process failed.Failed in two particulars. These were
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the claws and the pigment stuff.What is it at the back of the
eye in a cat? You know? Tapeatum, Yes, the tapeatum.
It didn't go. After I'd giddenthe stuff to bleach the blood and done
certain other things to her, Igave the beast opium and put her in
the little pillow she was sleeping onon the apparatus. And after all the
rest that faded and vanished, thereremained two little ghosts of her eyes.
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Odd. I can't explain it.She was bandaged and clamped, of course,
so I had her safe. Butshe woke while she was still misty
and meowed dismally, and some onecame knocking. It was an old woman
from downstairs who suspected me of vivisectinga drink. Sodden old creature with only
a white cat to care for inall the world. I whipped out some
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claw, applied it and answered thedoor. Did I hear a cat,
she asked, my cat? Nothere, said I, very politely.
She was a little doubtful, andtried to peer past me into the room,
strange enough to her, no doubt, bare walls, uncurtained windows,
truckle bed, with the gas enginevibrating, and the seethe of the radiant
points, and that faint, ghastlystinging of chloroform in the air. She
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had to be satisfied at last,and went away again. How long did
it take, asked Kemp, Threeor four hours? The cat, the
bones and sign news and the fatwere the last to go, and the
tips of the colored hairs, andas I say, the back part of
the eye, tough iridescent stuff thatit is, wouldn't go at all.
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It was night outside long before thebusiness was over, and nothing was to
be seen but the dim eyes andthe claws. I stopped the gas engine,
felt for and stroked the beast,which was still insensible, and then,
being tired, left it sleeping onthe invisible pillow and went to bed.
I found it hard to sleep.I lay awake, thinking weak,
aimless stuff, going over the experimentover and over again, or dreaming feverishly
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of things growing misty and vanishing aboutme, until everything the ground I stood
on vanished, and so I cameto that sickly falling nightmare. One gets
about two. The cat began meowingabout the room. I tried to hush
it by talking to it, andthen I decided to turn it out.
I remember the shock when I hadstriking a light. They were just the
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round eyes, shining green, andnothing round them. I would have given
it milk, but I hadn't anyIt wouldn't be quiet. It just sat
down and meowed at the door.I tried to catch it, with the
idea of putting it out of thewindow, but it wouldn't be caught.
It vanished. Then it began meowingin different parts of the room. At
last I opened the window and madea bustle. I suppose it went out.
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At last, I never saw anymore of it. Then heaven knows
why I fell thinking of my father'sfuneral again in the dismal, windy hillside
until the day had come I foundsleeping, was hopeless and locking my door
after me wandered out into the morningstreets. You don't mean to say there's
an invisible cast at large, saidKemp. If it hasn't been killed,
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said the invisible man. Why not? Why not? Said Kemp. I
didn't mean to interrupt. It's veryprobably been killed. It was alive.
Four days afterwards, I know,and down a grating in Great Titchfield Street
because I saw a crowd round theplace trying to see whence the me owing
came. He was silent for thebest part of a minute, then he
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resumed abruptly. I remember that morningbefore the change very vividly. I must
have gone up Great Portland Street.I remember the barracks in Albany Street and
the horse soldiers coming out, andat last I found the summit of Primrose
Hill. It was a sunny dayin January, one of those sunny,
frosty days that come before the snowthis year. My weary brain tried to
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formulate the position, to plot outa plan of action. I was surprised
to find now that the prize waswithin my grasp, how inconclusive its attainment
seemed. As a matter of fact, I was worked out. The intense
stress of nearly four years continuous workleft me incapable of any strength or feeling.
I was apathetic, and I triedin vain to recover the enthusiasm of
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my first inquiries, the passion ofdiscovery that had enabled me to compass even
the downfall of my father's gray hairs. Nothing seemed to matter. I saw
pretty clearly this was a transient mooddue to overwork and want of sleep,
and that either by drugs or rest, it would be possible to recover my
energies. All I could think clearlywas that the thing had to be carried
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through. The fixed idea still ruledme, and soon for the money I
had was almost exhausted. I lookedabout me at the hillside, with children
playing and girls watching them, andtried to think of all the fantastic advantages
an invisible man would have in theworld. After a time, I crawled
home, took some food and astrong dose of strychnine, and went to
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sleep in my clothes on my unmadebed. Strychnine is a grand tonic kenp
to take the flabbiness out of aman. It's the devil, said Kenvis,
the Paleolithic in a bottle. Iawoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable.
You know, I know the stuff. And there was some one rapping at
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the door. It was my landlord, with threats and inquiries, an old
Polish jew in a long gray coatand greasy slippers. I had been tormenting
a cat in the night. Hewas sure the old woman's tongue had been
busy. He insisted on knowing allabout it. The laws in this country
against vivisection were very severe. Hemight be liable. I denied the cat.
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Then the vibration of the little gasengine could be felt all over the
house. He said that was true, certainly. He edged around me into
the room, peering about over hisGerman silver spectacles, and a sudden dread
came into my mind that he mightcarry away something of my secret. I
tried to keep between him and theconcentrating apparatus I had arranged, and that
only made him more curious. Whatwas I doing? Why was I always
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alone and secretive? Was it legal? Was it dangerous. I paid nothing
but the usual rent. His hadalways been a most respectable house in a
disreputable neighborhood. Suddenly my temper gaveway. I told him to get out.
He began to protest, to jabberof his right of entry. In
a moment I had him by thecollar. Something ripped and he went spinning
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out into his own passage. Islammed and locked the door and sat down
quivering. He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a
time he went away. But thisbrought matters to a crisis. I did
not know what he would do,nor even what he had power to do.
To move to fresh apartments would havemeant delay. Altogether. I had
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barely twenty pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank,
and I could not afford that vanish. It was irresistible. Then there
would be an inquiry, the sackingof my room. At the thought of
the possibility of my work being exposedor interrupted its very climax, I became
angry and active. I hurried outwith my three books of notes, my
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check book. The tramp has themnow, and directed them from the nearest
post office to a house of Callfor Letters and Parcels in Great Portland Street.
I tried to go out noiselessly.Coming in, I found my landlord
going quietly upstairs. He had heardthe door close. I suppose you would
have laughed to see him jump asideon the landing. As I came tearing
up after him. He glad atme. As I went by him,
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and I made the house quiver withmy slamming of the door. I heard
him come shuffling up to my floor, hesitate, and go down. I
set to work upon my preparations forthwith. It was all done that evening and
night. While I was still sittingunder the sickly drowsy influence of the drugs
that decolorized blood, there came arepeated knocking at the door. It ceased,
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footsteps went away and returned, andthe knocking was resumed. There was
an attempt to push something under thedoor, a blue paper. Then,
in a fit of irritation, Iarose and went and flung the door wide
open. Now then I said itwas my landlord with a notice of ejectment
or something. He held it outto me. Saw something odd about my
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hands, I expected, and liftedhis eyes to my face. For a
moment he gaped. Then he gavea sort of inarticulate cry, dropped candle
and writ together, and went blunderingdown the dark passage to the stairs.
I shut the door, locked it, and went to the looking glass.
Then I understood his terror. Myface was white like white stone. But
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it was all horrible. I hadnot expected the suffering. A night of
racking, anguish, sickness, andfainting. I set my teeth, though
my skin was presently a fire.All my body afire. But I lay
there like grim death. I understoodnow how it was that the cat had
howled until I torraformed it. Luckyit was. I lived alone and untended
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in my room. There were timeswhen I sobbed and groaned and talked,
but I stuck to it. Ibecame insensible and woke languid in the darkness.
The pain had passed. I thoughtI was killing myself, and I
did not care. I shall neverforget that dawn, and the strange horror
of seeing that my hands had becomeas clouded glass, and watching them grow
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clearer and thinner as the day wentby, until at last I could see
the sickly disorder of my room throughthem. Though I closed my transparent eyelids,
my limbs became glassy, the bonesand arteries faded, vanished, and
the little white nerves went last.I gritted my teeth and stayed there to
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the end. At last, onlythe dead tips of the finger nails remained
pallid and white, and the brownstain of some acid upon my fingers.
I struggled up. At first,I was as incapable as a swathed infant,
stepping with limbs I could not see. I was weak and very hungry.
I went and stared at nothing inmy shaving glass, at nothing save
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where and attenuated pigment still remained behindthe retina of my eyes, fainter than
mist. I had to hang onto the table and press my forehead against
the glass. It was only byfrantic effort of will that I dragged myself
back to the apparatus and completed theprocess. I slept during the forenoon,
pulling the sheet over my eyes toshut out the light, and about mid
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day I was awakened again by aknocking. My strength had returned. I
sat up and listened and heard awhispering. I sprang to my feet,
and as noiselesly as possible, beganto attach the connections of my apparatus and
to distribute it about the room,so as to destroy the suggestions of its
arrangement. Presently, the knocking wasrenewed, and voices called, first my
landlords and then two others. Togain time, I answered them. The
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invisible rag and pillow came to hand, and I opened the window and pitched
them out on to the cistern cover. As the window opened, a heavy
crash came at the door. Someone had charged it with the idea of
smashing the lock, but the stoutbolts I had screwed up some days before
stopped him. That startled me mademe angry. I began to tremble and
do things hurriedly. I tossed togethersome loose paper, straw, packing paper,
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and so forth in the middle ofthe room, and turned on the
gas. Heavy blows began to rainupon the door. I could not find
the matches. I beat my handson the wall with rage. I turned
the gas again, stepped out ofthe window on the cistern cover. They
softly lowered the sash and sat down, secure and invisible, but quivering with
anger to watch events. They splita panel I saw, and in another
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moment they had broken away the staplesof the bolts and stood in the open
doorway. It was the landlord andhis two step sons, sturdy young men
of three or four, and twentybehind them fluttered the old hag of a
woman from downstairs. You may imaginetheir astonishment to find the room empty.
One of the younger men rushed tothe window at once, flung it up
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and stared out His staring eyes andthick lipped, bearded face came afoot from
my face. I was half mindedto hit his silly countenance, but I
arrested my doubled fist. He staredright through me, so did the others
as they joined him. The oldman went and peered under the bed,
and they all made a rush forthe cupboard. They had to argue about
it in length in Yiddish and cognyEnglish. They concluded I had not answered
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them, that their imagination had deceivedthem. A feeling of extraordinary elation took
the place of my anger as Isat outside the window and watched these four
people. For the old lady camein, glancing suspiciously about like a cat
trying to understand the riddle of mybehavior. The old man, so far
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as I could understand his patois,agreed with the old lady that I was
a vivisectionist. The sons protested ingarbled English that I was an electrician,
and appealed to the dynamos and radiators. They were all nervous about at my
arrival, although I found subsequently thatthey had bolted the front door. The
old lady peered into the cupboard andunder the bed, and one of the
young men pushed up the register andstared up the chimney. One of my
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fellow lodgers, a costermonger who sharedthe opposite room with a butcher, appeared
on the landing, and he wascalled in and told incoherent things. It
occurred to me that the radiators,if they fell into the hands of some
acute, well educated person, wouldgive me away too much, And watching
my opportunity, I came into theroom and tilted one of the little dynamos
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off its fellow on which it wasstanding, and smashed both apparatus. Then,
while they were trying to explain thesmash, I dodged out of the
room and went softly downstairs. Iwent into one of the sitting rooms and
waited until they came down, stillspeculating an argumentative all a little disappointed at
finding no horrors, and all alittle puzzled how they stood legally towards me.
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Then I slipped up again with abox of matches, fired my heap
of paper and rubbish, put thechairs and bed. Thereby led the gas
to the affair by the means ofan India rubber tube, and waving a
farewell to the room, left itfor the last time. You fired the
house, exclaimed Kemp. Fired thehouse. It was the only way to
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cover my trail, and no doubtit was. In short, I slipped
the bolts of the front door quietlyand went out into the street. I
was invisible, and I was onlyjust beginning to realize the extraordinary advantage my
invisibility gave me. My head wasalready teeming with plans of all the wild
and wonderful things I now had impunityto do. End of Chapter twenty.
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Recorded in Nottingham, England, onthe ninth of April twenty o six by
Alex Foster w W W Dot AlexFoster dot me dot UK
This is a LibriVox recording. AllLibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information, ought to volunteeryourself, please visit w w W dot
LibriVox dot org. To day's readingby Alex Foster w w W dot Alex
Foster dot me dot u K.The Invisible Man by H. G.
Wells, Chapter twenty at the Housein Great Portland Street. For a moment,
(00:29):
Kemp sat in silence, staring atthe back of the headless figure at
the window. Then he started,struck by a thought. Rose took the
Invisible Man's arm and turned him awayfrom the outlook. You're tired, he
said, and while I sit youwalk about. Have my chair. He
(00:50):
placed himself between Gryffin and the nearestwindow. For a space, Griffin sat
silent, then he resumed abruptly.I had left the Chesilstowe Cottage already,
he said. When that happened waslast December. I had taken a room
in London, a large, unfurnishedroom with a big, ill managed lodging
(01:10):
house in a slum near Great PortlandStreet. The room was soon full of
the appliances I had bought with hismoney, and the work was going on
steadily successfully drawing near an end.I was like a man emerging from a
thicket and suddenly coming on some unmeaningtragedy. I went to bury him.
My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift a finger
to save his character. I rememberthe funeral, the chief hearst, the
(01:36):
scant ceremony, the windy, frostbittenhillside, and the old college friend of
his who read the service over him, a shabby, black, bent old
man with a snivering cold. Iremember walking back to the empty house,
through the place that had once beena village, and was now patched and
tinkered by the jerry builders, intothe ugly likeness of a town. Every
(01:57):
way. The roads ran out atlast into the desert crated fields and ended
in rubble heaps and rank, wetweeds. I remembered myself as a gaunt
black figure going along the slippery,shiny pavement on the strange sense of detachment
I felt from the squalid respectability,the sordid commercialism of the place. I
did not feel a bit sorry formy father. He seemed to me to
(02:20):
be the victim of his own foolishsentimentality. The current cant required my attendance
at his funeral, but it wasreally not my affair. But going along
the high Street, my old lifecame back to me for a space for
I met the girl I had knownten years since our eyes met. Something
moved me to turn back and talkto her. She was a very ordinary
(02:43):
person. It was all like adream that visit to the old places.
I did not feel then that Iwas lonely, that I had come out
from the world into a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy,
but I put it down to thegeneral inanity of things. Re Entering my
room seemed like the recovery of reality. They were the things I knew and
(03:04):
loved. There stood the apparatus,the experiments arranged and waiting, And now
there was scarcely a difficulty left beyondthe planning of details. I will tell
you camp sooner or later. Allthe complicated processes. We need not go
into that now. For the mostpart, saving certain gaps, I chose
to remember they are written in cipherin those books the tramp has hidden.
(03:27):
We must hunt him down. Wemust get those books again. But the
essential phase was to place the transparentobject, whose refractive index was to be
lowered between two radiating centers of asort of ethereal vibration of which I will
tell you more fully later. No, not those oilancon vibrations. I don't
know those. These others of minehad been described yet they are obvious enough.
(03:49):
I needed two little dynamos, andthese I worked with a cheap gas
engine. My first experiment was witha bit of white wool fabric. It
was the strangest thing in the worldto see it in the flicker of the
flash, soft and white, andthen to watch it fade like a wreath
of smoke and vanish. I couldscarcely believe I had done it. I
put my hand into the emptiness,and there was the thing, as solid
(04:11):
as ever. I felt it awkwardlyand threw it on the floor. I
had a little trouble finding it again, and then came a curious experience.
I heard her meow behind me,and turning saw a lean white cat,
very dirty, on the cistern coveroutside the window. A thought came into
my head. Everything ready for you, I said, and I went to
(04:33):
the window, opened it and calledsoftly. She came in, purring.
The poor beast was starving, andI gave her some milk. All my
food was in a cupboard in thecorner of the room. After that she
went smelling round the room, evidentlywith the idea of making herself at home.
The invisible rag upset her a bit. Who should have seen a spit
(04:53):
at it? But I made hercomfortable on the pillow of my truckle bed,
and I gave her butter to gether to wash, and you processed
her. I processed her. Butgiving drugs to a cat is no joke,
kemp, and the process failed.Failed in two particulars. These were
(05:13):
the claws and the pigment stuff.What is it at the back of the
eye in a cat? You know? Tapeatum, Yes, the tapeatum.
It didn't go. After I'd giddenthe stuff to bleach the blood and done
certain other things to her, Igave the beast opium and put her in
the little pillow she was sleeping onon the apparatus. And after all the
rest that faded and vanished, thereremained two little ghosts of her eyes.
(05:38):
Odd. I can't explain it.She was bandaged and clamped, of course,
so I had her safe. Butshe woke while she was still misty
and meowed dismally, and some onecame knocking. It was an old woman
from downstairs who suspected me of vivisectinga drink. Sodden old creature with only
a white cat to care for inall the world. I whipped out some
(05:59):
claw, applied it and answered thedoor. Did I hear a cat,
she asked, my cat? Nothere, said I, very politely.
She was a little doubtful, andtried to peer past me into the room,
strange enough to her, no doubt, bare walls, uncurtained windows,
truckle bed, with the gas enginevibrating, and the seethe of the radiant
points, and that faint, ghastlystinging of chloroform in the air. She
(06:25):
had to be satisfied at last,and went away again. How long did
it take, asked Kemp, Threeor four hours? The cat, the
bones and sign news and the fatwere the last to go, and the
tips of the colored hairs, andas I say, the back part of
the eye, tough iridescent stuff thatit is, wouldn't go at all.
(06:46):
It was night outside long before thebusiness was over, and nothing was to
be seen but the dim eyes andthe claws. I stopped the gas engine,
felt for and stroked the beast,which was still insensible, and then,
being tired, left it sleeping onthe invisible pillow and went to bed.
I found it hard to sleep.I lay awake, thinking weak,
aimless stuff, going over the experimentover and over again, or dreaming feverishly
(07:09):
of things growing misty and vanishing aboutme, until everything the ground I stood
on vanished, and so I cameto that sickly falling nightmare. One gets
about two. The cat began meowingabout the room. I tried to hush
it by talking to it, andthen I decided to turn it out.
I remember the shock when I hadstriking a light. They were just the
(07:30):
round eyes, shining green, andnothing round them. I would have given
it milk, but I hadn't anyIt wouldn't be quiet. It just sat
down and meowed at the door.I tried to catch it, with the
idea of putting it out of thewindow, but it wouldn't be caught.
It vanished. Then it began meowingin different parts of the room. At
last I opened the window and madea bustle. I suppose it went out.
(07:53):
At last, I never saw anymore of it. Then heaven knows
why I fell thinking of my father'sfuneral again in the dismal, windy hillside
until the day had come I foundsleeping, was hopeless and locking my door
after me wandered out into the morningstreets. You don't mean to say there's
an invisible cast at large, saidKemp. If it hasn't been killed,
(08:16):
said the invisible man. Why not? Why not? Said Kemp. I
didn't mean to interrupt. It's veryprobably been killed. It was alive.
Four days afterwards, I know,and down a grating in Great Titchfield Street
because I saw a crowd round theplace trying to see whence the me owing
came. He was silent for thebest part of a minute, then he
(08:37):
resumed abruptly. I remember that morningbefore the change very vividly. I must
have gone up Great Portland Street.I remember the barracks in Albany Street and
the horse soldiers coming out, andat last I found the summit of Primrose
Hill. It was a sunny dayin January, one of those sunny,
frosty days that come before the snowthis year. My weary brain tried to
(09:01):
formulate the position, to plot outa plan of action. I was surprised
to find now that the prize waswithin my grasp, how inconclusive its attainment
seemed. As a matter of fact, I was worked out. The intense
stress of nearly four years continuous workleft me incapable of any strength or feeling.
I was apathetic, and I triedin vain to recover the enthusiasm of
(09:22):
my first inquiries, the passion ofdiscovery that had enabled me to compass even
the downfall of my father's gray hairs. Nothing seemed to matter. I saw
pretty clearly this was a transient mooddue to overwork and want of sleep,
and that either by drugs or rest, it would be possible to recover my
energies. All I could think clearlywas that the thing had to be carried
(09:43):
through. The fixed idea still ruledme, and soon for the money I
had was almost exhausted. I lookedabout me at the hillside, with children
playing and girls watching them, andtried to think of all the fantastic advantages
an invisible man would have in theworld. After a time, I crawled
home, took some food and astrong dose of strychnine, and went to
(10:03):
sleep in my clothes on my unmadebed. Strychnine is a grand tonic kenp
to take the flabbiness out of aman. It's the devil, said Kenvis,
the Paleolithic in a bottle. Iawoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable.
You know, I know the stuff. And there was some one rapping at
(10:24):
the door. It was my landlord, with threats and inquiries, an old
Polish jew in a long gray coatand greasy slippers. I had been tormenting
a cat in the night. Hewas sure the old woman's tongue had been
busy. He insisted on knowing allabout it. The laws in this country
against vivisection were very severe. Hemight be liable. I denied the cat.
(10:46):
Then the vibration of the little gasengine could be felt all over the
house. He said that was true, certainly. He edged around me into
the room, peering about over hisGerman silver spectacles, and a sudden dread
came into my mind that he mightcarry away something of my secret. I
tried to keep between him and theconcentrating apparatus I had arranged, and that
only made him more curious. Whatwas I doing? Why was I always
(11:09):
alone and secretive? Was it legal? Was it dangerous. I paid nothing
but the usual rent. His hadalways been a most respectable house in a
disreputable neighborhood. Suddenly my temper gaveway. I told him to get out.
He began to protest, to jabberof his right of entry. In
a moment I had him by thecollar. Something ripped and he went spinning
(11:31):
out into his own passage. Islammed and locked the door and sat down
quivering. He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a
time he went away. But thisbrought matters to a crisis. I did
not know what he would do,nor even what he had power to do.
To move to fresh apartments would havemeant delay. Altogether. I had
(11:52):
barely twenty pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank,
and I could not afford that vanish. It was irresistible. Then there
would be an inquiry, the sackingof my room. At the thought of
the possibility of my work being exposedor interrupted its very climax, I became
angry and active. I hurried outwith my three books of notes, my
(12:13):
check book. The tramp has themnow, and directed them from the nearest
post office to a house of Callfor Letters and Parcels in Great Portland Street.
I tried to go out noiselessly.Coming in, I found my landlord
going quietly upstairs. He had heardthe door close. I suppose you would
have laughed to see him jump asideon the landing. As I came tearing
up after him. He glad atme. As I went by him,
(12:37):
and I made the house quiver withmy slamming of the door. I heard
him come shuffling up to my floor, hesitate, and go down. I
set to work upon my preparations forthwith. It was all done that evening and
night. While I was still sittingunder the sickly drowsy influence of the drugs
that decolorized blood, there came arepeated knocking at the door. It ceased,
(12:58):
footsteps went away and returned, andthe knocking was resumed. There was
an attempt to push something under thedoor, a blue paper. Then,
in a fit of irritation, Iarose and went and flung the door wide
open. Now then I said itwas my landlord with a notice of ejectment
or something. He held it outto me. Saw something odd about my
(13:18):
hands, I expected, and liftedhis eyes to my face. For a
moment he gaped. Then he gavea sort of inarticulate cry, dropped candle
and writ together, and went blunderingdown the dark passage to the stairs.
I shut the door, locked it, and went to the looking glass.
Then I understood his terror. Myface was white like white stone. But
(13:41):
it was all horrible. I hadnot expected the suffering. A night of
racking, anguish, sickness, andfainting. I set my teeth, though
my skin was presently a fire.All my body afire. But I lay
there like grim death. I understoodnow how it was that the cat had
howled until I torraformed it. Luckyit was. I lived alone and untended
(14:01):
in my room. There were timeswhen I sobbed and groaned and talked,
but I stuck to it. Ibecame insensible and woke languid in the darkness.
The pain had passed. I thoughtI was killing myself, and I
did not care. I shall neverforget that dawn, and the strange horror
of seeing that my hands had becomeas clouded glass, and watching them grow
(14:22):
clearer and thinner as the day wentby, until at last I could see
the sickly disorder of my room throughthem. Though I closed my transparent eyelids,
my limbs became glassy, the bonesand arteries faded, vanished, and
the little white nerves went last.I gritted my teeth and stayed there to
(14:43):
the end. At last, onlythe dead tips of the finger nails remained
pallid and white, and the brownstain of some acid upon my fingers.
I struggled up. At first,I was as incapable as a swathed infant,
stepping with limbs I could not see. I was weak and very hungry.
I went and stared at nothing inmy shaving glass, at nothing save
(15:05):
where and attenuated pigment still remained behindthe retina of my eyes, fainter than
mist. I had to hang onto the table and press my forehead against
the glass. It was only byfrantic effort of will that I dragged myself
back to the apparatus and completed theprocess. I slept during the forenoon,
pulling the sheet over my eyes toshut out the light, and about mid
(15:28):
day I was awakened again by aknocking. My strength had returned. I
sat up and listened and heard awhispering. I sprang to my feet,
and as noiselesly as possible, beganto attach the connections of my apparatus and
to distribute it about the room,so as to destroy the suggestions of its
arrangement. Presently, the knocking wasrenewed, and voices called, first my
landlords and then two others. Togain time, I answered them. The
(15:54):
invisible rag and pillow came to hand, and I opened the window and pitched
them out on to the cistern cover. As the window opened, a heavy
crash came at the door. Someone had charged it with the idea of
smashing the lock, but the stoutbolts I had screwed up some days before
stopped him. That startled me mademe angry. I began to tremble and
do things hurriedly. I tossed togethersome loose paper, straw, packing paper,
(16:18):
and so forth in the middle ofthe room, and turned on the
gas. Heavy blows began to rainupon the door. I could not find
the matches. I beat my handson the wall with rage. I turned
the gas again, stepped out ofthe window on the cistern cover. They
softly lowered the sash and sat down, secure and invisible, but quivering with
anger to watch events. They splita panel I saw, and in another
(16:41):
moment they had broken away the staplesof the bolts and stood in the open
doorway. It was the landlord andhis two step sons, sturdy young men
of three or four, and twentybehind them fluttered the old hag of a
woman from downstairs. You may imaginetheir astonishment to find the room empty.
One of the younger men rushed tothe window at once, flung it up
(17:02):
and stared out His staring eyes andthick lipped, bearded face came afoot from
my face. I was half mindedto hit his silly countenance, but I
arrested my doubled fist. He staredright through me, so did the others
as they joined him. The oldman went and peered under the bed,
and they all made a rush forthe cupboard. They had to argue about
it in length in Yiddish and cognyEnglish. They concluded I had not answered
(17:27):
them, that their imagination had deceivedthem. A feeling of extraordinary elation took
the place of my anger as Isat outside the window and watched these four
people. For the old lady camein, glancing suspiciously about like a cat
trying to understand the riddle of mybehavior. The old man, so far
(17:47):
as I could understand his patois,agreed with the old lady that I was
a vivisectionist. The sons protested ingarbled English that I was an electrician,
and appealed to the dynamos and radiators. They were all nervous about at my
arrival, although I found subsequently thatthey had bolted the front door. The
old lady peered into the cupboard andunder the bed, and one of the
young men pushed up the register andstared up the chimney. One of my
(18:11):
fellow lodgers, a costermonger who sharedthe opposite room with a butcher, appeared
on the landing, and he wascalled in and told incoherent things. It
occurred to me that the radiators,if they fell into the hands of some
acute, well educated person, wouldgive me away too much, And watching
my opportunity, I came into theroom and tilted one of the little dynamos
(18:32):
off its fellow on which it wasstanding, and smashed both apparatus. Then,
while they were trying to explain thesmash, I dodged out of the
room and went softly downstairs. Iwent into one of the sitting rooms and
waited until they came down, stillspeculating an argumentative all a little disappointed at
finding no horrors, and all alittle puzzled how they stood legally towards me.
(18:53):
Then I slipped up again with abox of matches, fired my heap
of paper and rubbish, put thechairs and bed. Thereby led the gas
to the affair by the means ofan India rubber tube, and waving a
farewell to the room, left itfor the last time. You fired the
house, exclaimed Kemp. Fired thehouse. It was the only way to
(19:14):
cover my trail, and no doubtit was. In short, I slipped
the bolts of the front door quietlyand went out into the street. I
was invisible, and I was onlyjust beginning to realize the extraordinary advantage my
invisibility gave me. My head wasalready teeming with plans of all the wild
and wonderful things I now had impunityto do. End of Chapter twenty.
(19:40):
Recorded in Nottingham, England, onthe ninth of April twenty o six by
Alex Foster w W W Dot AlexFoster dot me dot UK
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